Earlier today, Apple unveiled their answer to the Kindle and Nook tablets – the long awaited iPad Mini has arrived. The idea is simple, give people who can’t afford the bigger price tag of the iPad, and have instead opted for competing smaller tablets and ereaders like the Amazon Kindle and the Nook from Barnes & Noble, an affordable Apple iPad option.
Although the price of the iPad mini is lower at $329, and its profile is about inches smaller than its big brother (iPad), the mini is not short on performance or features. About the weight of a “pad of paper”, the iPad Mini is 7.2mm of pencil thin computing power. Measured diagonally, the iPad Mini has a 7.9-inch screen versus the 9.7 inch screen on the iPad.
While the smaller iPad does not boast the retina display, it does have a sharp screen with a resolution of 1024 by 768. This means that apps built for the iPad should work just fine on the mini.
Cast in an aluminum shell, the new iPad features a dual-core A5 chip and includes two 5 mega-pixle cameras allowing for use with FaceTime HD. The starting price at $329 is for a model with 16GB of storage and Wi-Fi-only connectivity. $459 is the starting prices for a 16 GB with Wi-Fi plus cellular. Battery life on the Apple iPad Mini is 10 hours according to Apple.